Roses Rest Within the Hearts of Hydrangeas
by spazmoid
Summary: His fingers wound a crimson ribbon that held together a bouquet of bright orange roses resting in a bed of blue hydrangea flowers.


**Title:: **"Roses Rest Within the Heart of Hydrangeas"

**Fandom:: **South Park (cartoon)

**Pairing: **McTucker (Kenny and Craig)

**A/N:: **This fanfic is orginally written for a winter contest in a Mctucker/Crenny club on deviantART. ovo [And the original was much, much shorter.]

* * *

Snow danced across the sky of South Park. The houses were covered in white blankets and strands of bright red and green lights brightly shined on almost all of the houses. Even in the poorer side of town, beer bottles in their festive colours glittered off the light of the pale moon that hung in the sky.

Families had gathered together whether from love or just old tradition. Children dreamt of sugar plums and new Nintendo's. Teenagers dreamt of the oncoming Christmas parties. Adults crept through the house wordlessly as they quietly dropped presents underneath the tree with a happy note from Good Ol' Saint Nicholas.

Only one boy was out at this time of night. He was dressed in all blue from his dark chullo cap to his blue canvas sneakers. You would recognise him by his purple eyes and the black hair that seemed to curl around the ends of his hat in the back. This boy was Craig Tucker, and although it was Christmas Eve he was walking to the cemetery.

He fixed the plastic wreath on the front of the gate before pushing it open with the toe of his sneaker. He passed row upon row of ice covered tombstones with pale, newly bought bouquets of poinsettias and festive plants to the place no longer used. It was a part of the cemetery forgotten behind bushes of thorns and wild roses that somehow managed to grow without frost. He sat down in the clearing, knees pulled up to his chest and arms wrapped around them. He began to wait.

It was only around ten minutes to midnight when his impatience began to show on his pale skin and in his movements. His fingers wound a crimson ribbon that held together a bouquet of bright orange roses resting in a bed of blue hydrangea flowers. A nervous quirk he had acquired over the years of waiting and he now did it mindlessly. His finger twirled until the ribbon bound it too tight and then twirled it in the opposite direction until it was loose again. He did this in an endless repetition and stared blankly at the sky, eyes blinking away the falling snowflakes.

You could almost see his mouth wordlessly mouthing the seconds as the little alarm on his watch beeped midnight. A single star in the sky seemed to glow brightly and then fall. Only Craig knew this was not an ordinary star. The bright light fell forward, growing larger and larger and taking shape as it neared the clearing where Craig sat perfectly still, fingers frozen from their repetition as the ribbon released his fingers.

The light crashed and died as it tumbled in the snow. It was not a very graceful fall. It was similar to a meteor crashing into the earth or an angel clumsily falling from the sky. Some of the white powder dusted Craig's face and stuck there to his bangs and jacket. He stood up and wiped away the snow along with a smile that threatened to show on his lips.

The light had was actually a boy. A boy with dark blond hair and sparkling blue eyes who smiled at him with the biggest cheesiest grin in the history of cheesy grins. Only Craig knew that smile and it would look insane on anywhere but this certain boy's face.

Despite the fall, his bright orange hoodie was clean, and he embraced Craig wrapping his arms around his slightly shorter frame. The only words that repeated in Craig's mind contained a four-letter word and two other much shorter words and a name. Instead of saying that he smiled, the smile he only reserved for this boy with the orange hoodie and mischevious grin. "Merry Christmas Kenny," he said handing him the bouquet of orange and blue and a small present that rested in the middle. His voice struggled to stay monotone as he tried so hard to not say the other words that danced dangerously on the edge of his tongue threatening to leap out in a single suicidal leap.

But Kenny knew what he had wanted to say. It was the way he smiled rarely and when he did it was only for him. It was the way his face flushed when he had hugged him. It was the way he hid obviously scratched fingers from picking wild roses and stealing from the hydrangea bushes that only grew in Butters' greenhouse underneath his thin blue gloves. It was the way he always waited every single time he died for him to return even if it meant missing Christmas with his family.

Kenny continued to smile, not letting Craig know that he knew his secret and unwrapped the present, careful not to tear the ribbon or paper. The box held nothing inside but air. He looked up at Craig confusion painting his face.

"I couldn't wrap it," Craig said and then he kissed him. It was a soft kiss filled with all the words he always ended up leaving unsaid and the emotions he always left unexpressed. The bouquet fell forgotten into the snow as Kenny held his face flushed from the cold between his hands as he gave Craig his own present in a similar fashion.

And so the snowflakes continued to fall as the children and other teenagers continued to dream. Parents now slept peacefully tired in beds awaiting for their children to wake them. And two boys continued to kiss each giving each other the best present of all.


End file.
